In anticipation of the performance tonight (October 30) with Dominic Lash and Mark Sanders, I’ve uploaded a short clip from our October 28 performance at Fizzle, Birmingham. Taken from the last few minutes of our first improvisation, I think the breadth of landscape the ensemble covers in that short time is impressive. [More about this performance…]
To be released by SLAM Productions in February 2015: Anomic Aphasia (SLAMCD 559) featuring two New York/Brooklyn-based projects, the collision of noise and serendipity that is Eris 136199 (Nick Didkovsky: guitar; Han-earl Park: guitar; and Catherine Sikora: saxophones), and the real-time rendering of the improvisative playbook Metis 9 (a collaboration between Park; Sikora; and Josh Sinton: saxophone and clarinet).
I am very proud of the work represented by these projects, documenting some of the best playing that I have had the honor of being part of. Super excited that this is coming out.
Duns Limited Edition has ceased production, but during its lifetime it was pretty prolific. Having founded the label himself, Paul relished in the freedom to record and release on cdr a multitude of projects, playing with like-minded, creative musicians at his invitation. All the music is totally freely improvised. [Read the rest…]
For Miguel Copón, Prepared Guitar is a “metaphor about metamorphosis” and a “place to support independent artists”. Prepared Guitar recently published my response to Copón’s 13 Questions, so you can now read, among other things, about my first guitar, my musical roots (as contradictory as they may be), and what I’m currently working on:
But the thing that’s tugging at me right now is the possibilities of the score in the context of improvisative performance. Ideas, some specific, some nebulous, all as yet untested about what might be possible…
I’m not sure at all where this is leading, but having through some combination of ideology and necessity (ain’t it always the way?) found myself somewhat involuntarily in the ‘Total Improvisation’ camp, I’m beginning to look on the other side of the fence. Let me be clear, the, to borrow Lewis’ term, Eurological conception of the score and the practice that surrounds it (theorized in detail by Small, Cusick, Nicholas Cook and others), with its limited models of control and dogma of reproducibility, and naive notions of aesthetics, does not interest me at all.
However, I’m feeling a gravitational tug. Maybe it’s due to coming into close contact with musicians who have a much more sophisticated (if often, from an non-practitioners POV, misunderstood and under theorized) relationship with the score and the possibilities of notation. But it’s a distinct pull. Still working—struggling—through some ideas, and studies, and have far, far more questions than answers about the possible role notation and the score might have in an improvisative context, but that’s the new thing that’s exciting me at the moment. [Read the rest…]
You can also read my struggle with a question about the necessity of music, my take on the current digital music scene, and the politics of ‘extended technique’:
So what’s being ‘extended’ by ‘extended technique’? Is it akin to, say, a colonial explorer extending their influence and territory; ‘discovering’ a land (regardless of whether some other people were there first)?
Had an interested online exchange with Hans Tammen on the subject, and it struck me how much the term ‘extended technique’ is a way to distinguish pioneers from the rest of us. Where you draw those lines (between common practice and extended technique) says much more about your own history and prejudices than some essential quality of the technique in question.
Ishmael Wadada Leo Smith once pointed out how Stockhausen claimed the invention of certain ‘extended techniques’ for the trumpet that were patently false if you had even a passing knowledge of practices outside of West European traditions. Did Stockhausen, and his supporters, claim these techniques because of a kind of ignorance, or as a deliberate erasure of other traditions? Either way, it requires a heavy dose of privilege to ignore, to justify your ignorance, or to mark peoples and cultures as irrelevant. [Read the rest…]
Looking through the list of respondents to the 13 Questions, I’m honored to find my name among those guitarists whose work I admire. I’m grateful that Miguel Copón asked me to participate.
The opening track, ‘Helix’ contains some of my favorite moments of the recording. Sikora’s soprano sax sounds like it is drawing a line from each hit of the bass, with Park coloring in the spaces between. Park, with whom she also released Cork 04-04-11, is an understated and sympathetic accompanist throughout.
Feel the force of Sikora’s playing too—halfway through the second track, ‘The Chopping Block’ her soprano is clear and cutting, the melodic lines spinning and swirling around Park’s textures and Grillot’s rhythmic pulse. [Read the rest…]
As Dave Sumner describes it, Work Spaces is “a series of photos of artist work spaces… the places where the creative process takes shape and form,” and in this edition features:
Han-earl Park work space in his Kensington, Brooklyn apartment. According to Park, it is also where Gisel the cat performs her role as music critic. [More…]
the conference of super squirrels (11:10); a radio dial & the piano (9:36); a nap, a dream, a song & chaos cloud (11:07); calling in ideas (encore) (13:48). Total duration: 45:42.
Coming soon: Catherine Sikora, Han-earl Park and François Grillot’s Tracks in the dirt (Clockwork Mercury Press 003). Recorded September 26, 2012 at 56 Kitchen, New York. More to follow…
